I couldn't resist. Jack Savage in the Patrick McGoohan role in a weird twist of The Village. More to come and an open invite to anyone who might want to play.
"I quit!"
The director scowled at the undignified display of his erstwhile senior agent. "What new bout of righteous indignation has you up this time?" He was a good agent, in that he always got the job done, though increasingly, on his own terms and with a round of post mission melodrama.
"Its this whole agency!" The Hare slammed his paws on the director's desk. "We've become mere tools of the most venal corporate interests."
"Isn't it a little late in the game to get so noble? Or haven't you been paying attention?" The director was a bit put off by his selective idealism. "You were never so fussy back in the bad old days."
"There were clear and necessary choices back then, and favorable economic fall-out was just a lucky side effect."
The director rolled his eyes. "If that what you tell yourself to sleep at night." He then gave the agent a harder look. "Is it that girl? With all the body count behind you, I would have thought you were a bit more inured to that?"
The Hare paused with a grimace. "We helped undermine a stable democratic government, and in turn destabilized a whole region that is now in the process of killing millions, just to get a better deal on some mining access." He took a breath. "Skye was just icing on the cake."
"So you say." The director was not impressed. But he picked up the resignation letter and considered it a moment. "Okay. I accept your resignation. Standard security non-disclosure and all that. Civil Service pension, a little abbreviated due to your age, a bit below regular early retirement, but we can make accommodations." He signed and stamped the letter. "You can turn over you ID at the door, and there will be someone coming to collect your left over toys back at your apartment later."
Jack Savage nodded and spun on his toes to leave. As he did, the director muttered to himself, "Be seeing you."
Back at his apartment, Jack began packing. Staying there was out of the question. If nothing else, he couldn't really afford it. But more immediately, he needed to get out of the city, take some time out of the country. Clear his head for a couple weeks as an anonymous tourist. Then come back and find a more out of the way place to enjoy his books.
There was someone at the door, must be the agency come to fetch the last of their property. As he approached, there was a suspicious shadow under the edge of the door and a faint hiss. He leapt back away, but could feel the likely deadly effect of something. So much for a retirement was his last thought.
6666
And it was morning. In an unfamiliar bedroom. A bit more cozy, a bit rustic to his taste. The furniture appeared to be 'homey' possibly paw made, as were the room details, a sort of farmhouse classic. And there were voices, a confused din of - was it a warren? He was a Hare, born and raised, very much a small 'nuclear' family, rather than the Rabbity fluffle that seemed to be outside the door.
He opened the door to a hall way were several Rabbits were coming and going. A couple made fleeting familiar eye contact, one even said "Morning Jack."
"Wait! Where am I?" Jack demanded.
The Rabbit, a young Buck, looked at him with some confusion. "You okay, Jack?" Then with a bit more concern, "You're here, same as always, right?"
Jack's reflexive response was to play along for the moment. "Sorry, just a little brain fart I guess."
"A little breakfast will help, eh?" the Buck offered.
"Yeah, actually." And he gratefully followed the Buck down a distance to a dining area. Like many larger warrens, it had a bit of cafeteria feel to it as it appeared to be able to accommodate several score Rabbits at any one time, though at the moment had maybe a dozen doing breakfast.
The smells seemed familiar, disturbingly so. The setting was entirely new, but the scents. They were the deepest memories, the most visceral reactions. In his line of work, manipulation by any and all means was standard practice, and recognizing who was really the target was half the battle.
So, he was there for reasons, and whoever was trying to make him feel at home. Or establish a level of subtle paranoia. Or both.
But he could use a bite and it was, as they say, 'simple hearty fair'.
Afterwards, he meandered the halls, and found the place to be a warren as much in the figurative sense. There did not seem to be a ninety-degree angle in the layout, with oddly meandering spaces, vertically as well as horizontal. It took some time to find a proper way out of the place through a little sitting room that overlooked the outside.
And in stepping out, he was struck by how small the farmhouse styled architectural clutter he had just stepped out was. All that volume must be largely underground, though he had little sense that he had done all that much climbing.
The structure was in the middle of a large field, more like a well-trimmed lawn, and it must stretch for hundreds of yards in all directions. And all bordered by woods. He had expected farming fields, as the Rabbits he'd passed in the warren were dressed in jeans and flannel or overalls, presumably farm labor. But out in the open, there wasn't any sign of agriculture, or for that matter, any Rabbits. It was all oddly quiet.
He walked around the building. Definitely smaller on the outside. And no out buildings or signs of anything like a built-in garage or equipment access door on the building. Then, while there were several doors, even a front porch and main entrance doors to the building, there was no walkways, paths, or even a sign of foot traffic.
There was no road leading up to the house either.
An awfully elaborate set up. Not likely done up all for him. Perhaps a processing operation for agents? Didn't seem to be the style of his agency, but who knows? Compartmentalization was standard operating procedure. So much so that there'd been missions that ended up being investigations of divisions of itself.
Or something being run by someone else? Another agency? A foreign power? Or, as likely as anything anymore, a private firm now in the business?
But first things first. Was there a way out of there?
It felt like mid morning, so the sun would be south and east still. So head due east and see where that takes one.
Jack headed off in an easy stride, senses ever alert to any reaction as he crossed the expanse of lawn. At the edge of the woods the grass stopped neatly, precisely, in a great arc, presumably a perfect circle around the warren.
The woods ahead were mixed deciduous broad leaf types, with a minimum of undergrowth on a floor of typical leaf and twig litter. He stepped off into the woods with just a touch of anticlimax. No obvious alarms or reactions of any kind. So it would seem he would have a simple walk in the woods.
After a little while, had he gone a mile or so? Hard to tell in unfamiliar surroundings and being extra alert, perception of time and distance could get awfully subjective. The woods seemed to be thinning to a clearing up ahead.
And back to the warren. The sun angle had not changed, and the tree canopy had never gotten so dense as to fully obscure it for any length of time. But as he had headed out to the east, he now was approaching the warren, or something looking just like it, from out of the west.
He was not going to panic, yet. And after walking back to the building, noticing his own earlier footprints in the grass, he stuck off due north, as the sun seemed to indicate. And maybe a half hour later was still walking north as he re-entered the field.
Definitely a more complex situation.
Other than some manner of topological nightmare, a touch of the right pharmaceuticals could help create the effect. For now he wasn't going to worry too much about that. He never expected that he could really just walk away from whoever put him there anyway.
Going back into the warren, he considered what to do next. Maybe some more wandering around for familiarization, as he suspected it was even more extensive than his first impressions. And so it was. And after a while he was grateful to find a little reading nook, a pocket library to sit down. Well, once he took a look at the collection.
His first reaction was dismay and his first impulse was to alphabetize the random mess of volumes. Especially as there were, mixed in with the latest potboilers and cheap thrillers, some classics and vintage esoterica, much more to his taste.
Moreover, as he poked through, he noticed that these shelves had the bulk of his own collection in them. Or at least, a version thereof. Same titles, but always different editions, and of course, none of his actual volumes. Likely done to avoid page codes or some similar old school cloak and dagger.
But as he pawed though, he noticed that there were no references, scientific, technical, or historical. Or at least nothing less than a century out of date. Not even a geography or atlas. Nor any biographies.
Oh well. He pulled out a collection of short fiction, and was preparing to settle in for a few when a Rabbit popped in.
"Hi, Jack!"
He was a simple brown puff of a bunny and Jack had no qualms about considering him in the diminutive, as he appeared to be just that. He gave the fellow a small nod.
The other noted his book, "Ah! The Collected Works. Not my favorite, but they all can't be winners." And pulled out a mid-list potboiler from a few years earlier.
Jack refrained from an eye-roll.
"Say, Jack, have you considered the offer of joining the sportball club? I heard you were good in front?"
Of course Jack had no idea who this Bunny was or anything else there. Sportball? He could play well enough, phys-ed back in university and informal pick-up games at various times, but he was never one for formal teams. "Sorry, not interested in joining."
"Pity. Could use you on the line."
After a pause, Jack risked a question. "So, how long have you been here?"
The Bunny gave him a look. "You know that isn't polite to ask." But seeing Jack's expression in turn, "A fair while. No calendars, no clocks, you know."
"So lunch is?" It still felt early and he wasn't that hungry, but it was worth asking.
Presently, a tone sounded. "Hah! Saved by the bell, so to speak." Then seeing Jack's expression, "Come on, Jack. Let's see what's on the menu today."
He was grateful for the guide, as he could have sworn that the route to the cafeteria had changed from earlier.
And lunch was there. Simple, hearty fair, with scents that were determined to trigger nostalgic familiarity. But was it, and were they? How much of the set up was deliberate and how much might be his over-thinking of things?
As he settled in, he noticed that there were about two score bunnies of various sorts, as many as he had seen so far. So no time like the present. He stood up. "Excuse me, but I have to ask. Who is in charge here?"
The whole room turned to look at him, many with a politely patient expression. One of the older rabbits answered. "That again Jack?" To many supportive nods.
"Enough of the gaslighting. I'm here, where ever here is, presumably for 'reasons', and would like to know who I have to talk to."
After a collective eye roll, one of the rabbits got up to address Jack. "Okay, this again. First there is no one 'in charge', its all an anarchy in the technical sense. We all do what we do out of practical necessity rather than being told by some manager or whatever. Why you are here? I don't exactly know, as you don't yet seem to have a role to fill. But as there are a few other idlers in the group." A small chuckle and some good natured back and forth with a couple other rabbits in the crowd. "Perhaps you need not have any particular role other than just being here?"
"And I don't suppose there is any way to leave?"
"You have me there. No one leaves the Warren, but why bother, eh?"
Thought the vibe was not one of creepy cult or anything like that, Jack felt there were unspoken things afoot. Perhaps they were all actors? Or fellow captives who had given up? Or brainwashed? Whatever was going on, it was clear he wasn't going to get answers here and now.
"Whatever then. Sorry to have disrupted the..." He didn't have a word for it and left the cafeteria, shaking his head.
He wandered the halls, and seemed only by luck, found his own room. All the disorientation made him wonder about some level of drugs in him. The weird walk in the woods and the seemingly ever-changing warren interior. Maybe a little lie down might help.
Then he flinched awake. He was on a cool dry hard floor, concrete? Completely black and silent. He was naked, and the air was just cold enough to eventually get uncomfortable. Now this was the kind of interrogation or imprisonment he was expecting.
He crawled around, hearing a wall nearby, and used that to help stand up. As he did so, a blinding light shown in his face, causing him to stagger back a pace. Then a voice. "Hello there John."
Oh, they were going to get nasty.